I have a nice beam on shortof the boat going upwind with the fat head but I can't upload it, anyone have a guess as to why it's invalid?

I havd been racing the boat with mixed results. Most of the racing has been in very light conditions which killed me on a pursuit race where I was the first starter and didn't help in the other races as the breeze filled from ahead, I don't have a jib so I get killed until the breeze fills. I've been very impressed with the downwind speed, I go about as well or better than a J-30 which owes me almost 100 secs mile in Narragansett Bay. I get crushed upwind in all conditions though the 10-14 range in flat water I'm not that far off. I sailed a regatta this weekend with just my daughter crewing in about 15-20, the first race we port tacked the fleet (4 J-30's, a Pearson 36, a Kirby 30 and two Graves Constellations) and though they all passed me by the first mark I was close. Downwind I passed the Kirby, one of the J-30's (who was using an Assymetic on a prod) and the Graves, and caught up to another of the J-30's and P36. As we rounded the leeward mark, with a fetch to the finish, the Spectra strap I had holding the main sheet block on the boom broke so we floundered for a bit while I jury rigged, in the long run we couldn't pull the main in far enough and sort of reached our way back up wind. That said, we were still 3rd corrected, 2 minutes out of 1st (and we sat luffing for 3 minutes and didn't lay). In the 2nd race we port tacked the fleet again, got passed by everyone again and were close at the weather mark. Unfortunately, while I was fixing the main block between races I didn't have enough time to straighten out the kite and the take down line got snarled on the hoist. While I was trying to get it undone the foot of the kite got stuck on the pole blocks on the gun mount and ripped the foot tape off so we dropped out. Could have been worse but it shows there are times when the boat goes OK.

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Last edited by moosemcclintock on Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

peaceandfreedom wrote:maybe the picture size is too big. I think 100KB is the max size.I would love to see the picture of your new sail. Would you be able to email it to me at jim3bk@comcast.netjim D

Here's a shot of the boat with the kite up. The boat in front of me is a C&C 99, this is after 8 miles of sailing, he owed me 1:43 mile. I passed him about 5 minutes later, but then we turned upwind for a 16 mile beat and he kicked my ass.

peaceandfreedom wrote:maybe the picture size is too big. I think 100KB is the max size.I would love to see the picture of your new sail. Would you be able to email it to me at jim3bk@comcast.netjim D

Here's a shot of the boat with the kite up. The boat in front of me is a C&C 99, this is after 8 miles of sailing, he owed me 1:43 mile. I passed him about 5 minutes later, but then we turned upwind for a 16 mile beat and he kicked my ass.

Actually, I just looked, he owed me more than 2 1/2 minutes a mile so at this point I was sailing 20 minutes over my rating. Too bad it didn't last.

I'm learning a lot more about how to sail the boat, which has been interesting. I did a single handed race this weekend, I have set up a small line that goes to the mast arm and I can pre-rotate the rig as I go into the tack. It doesn't go as far as I thought it should but proved to be much faster to have the mast less rotated, this was how Yarrow thought it should look when we did a race earlier this year. By under rotating it the mid leech is standing up better and I have more power and point. This does make the tip more flexible but I put the runner on to stabilize it and that seemed to do the trick. In 10-15 knots I was just a little lower than the boats with headsails and staying between 5.2 and 5.4 over the bottom against the current, best the boat has felt.

With the boat set up this way I was able to stay within sight of the lead boat in my class, and smoke a J-24 (which wasn't very well sailed), on a 6 mile beat. between reaching and running to the finish, without a kite, I caught back up 6 minutes on the lead boat (an O'Day 34), pass a double handed C&C 99 and almost caught a double handed Pearson 28 (he beat me by 30 seconds across the line), both of which started 5 minutes ahead of me, so the boat is definitely going better. Great fun, the only time I sail the boat is when I race so I've got a good guage with other boats as far as how well they're being sailed, at this rate I'll be competitive in a couple years.

That is great to hear, I launch Gonzo in 1.5 hrs, so we will have to do a bit of match racing. old verse new, so you can see what it feel like to beat boats by a lot . send me an email of your new line for prerotation of rig, I also feel yor mast bears are not working properly, but sounds like the rig settings are getting refined which is great to hear.

yarrow wrote:That is great to hear, I launch Gonzo in 1.5 hrs, so we will have to do a bit of match racing. old verse new, so you can see what it feel like to beat boats by a lot . send me an email of your new line for prerotation of rig, I also feel yor mast bears are not working properly, but sounds like the rig settings are getting refined which is great to hear.

Actually, if I spray dry lube into the collar it's very slippery and rotates easily. I did this for the weekend and the mast rotated ver freely. I'm thining that I should replace the metal collar with Delrin, this would take care of the rpoblem for the most part.

For the tacking line, I just put bullet blocks on the stanchions just aft of the mast, I have a continuous loop that runs aft behind the traveler. When tacking, as the boat goes head to wind I just pull on the new leeward line and it pops the mast right over, quick and easy. It doesn't work as well for gybing, still working on that one.